let's press on.

Today was harder than I thought. I guess David's departure from Spokane just hit me hard.

On the way to the airport we were reminded of our agony when David left for Iraq and were thanking God that he's not on his way to another deployment.  His deployment was really really hard - this is hard in a similarly heart hurting way but for different reasons.  It's always sad to be apart, God meant married people to be together!, it's hard to be alone for David and it's hard to be a single parent for me.  There are many emotions on top of him leaving that make me emotional - not having Evelyn home yet, have Wrigley leave too (he's always been my constant companion even when David is gone), and this was just a step toward our official move away from Spokane.

Tonight, our family of four will be spread out over three countries - crazy.

When we were getting David and Wrigley checked in I started to cry pretty hard. The agent that was checking David in told us in a very casual voice, "That kennel you have for your dog doesn't meet our airline standards".  Ummm, what?  We got it especially for this flight... but wait, we checked to see if this kennel met the regulations of the airline David was originally flying on, not this one. Since last week his date of travel and therefore changed airlines and we didn't think of checking to see what the pet standards were.  We asked what we should do and the agent says, "well, you can hop on over to Wal-mart and buy one or we can see if we have one here you can buy."  That's when I started to cry and then I think the agent didn't know what to do so she stopped making eye contact.  In the end, they had a better kennel for Wrigley there and it was only $60 so hopefully we can figure out a way to return or sell the other new one we bought.  Phew!

Our last week here together was wonderful. We went on a really great date, saw most of our small group, ran errands, celebrated the 4th with the Hooks and chilled at home.  We are so thankful for all we've been given.  Now, we just need to press on... I need to get organized and packed and moved and David needs to find us a wonderful home in Germany!

And because I love me some pictures... here's a few from this week :)

Our date ended beautifully with some amazing ice cream!

And this, this is where we get to have our small group in the summers :)  David and Joel were about to jump from the "high dive"